Juno News - The Alberta Roundup ｜ Alberta Next kicks off in Red Deer

00:00:00.000 the alberta next panel launched its first in-person town hall in red deer on tuesday followed by

00:00:16.200 another in edmonton the following day with albertans calling for everything from independence

00:00:20.840 to communism and premier smith listening to it all naheed nenshi has officially begun his term

00:00:27.080 as mla for edmonton strathcona kicking off his mla career by spending little time on announcing

00:00:32.540 anything instead using most of it to bash the premier we also saw the back and forth continue

00:00:38.280 between smith and nenshi on the access of sexually explicit content to children in school libraries

00:00:43.740 and federally conservative leader pierre poiliev is warning about ballot manipulation in alberta's

00:00:49.440 upcoming by-election where he's aiming to reclaim a seat in parliament but will seemingly face

00:00:54.360 similar challenges on the ballot to what he did in the federal election all that and more on this

00:00:59.560 week's alberta roundup i'm your host isaac lamrew and let's get into that first story right away

00:01:03.800 the alberta next panel held its first in-person town hall this week in red deer launching its

00:01:09.080 consultation tour to determine which topics should go to referendum in 2026 premier daniel smith chaired

00:01:15.760 the event alongside 15 other panel members including economists retired judges former mlas and policy

00:01:23.420 experts the evening was moderated by former mla bruce mcallister who guided the audience through six core

00:01:29.900 topics taxation immigration equalization the alberta pension plan provincial policing and the

00:01:36.860 constitution each section began with a short explainer video all of which are posted to youtube

00:01:42.700 followed by open microphone where albertans lined up to offer their thoughts some pitched serious

00:01:48.620 policy reforms while others called for separation and one attendee even attempted to recruit for the

00:01:54.140 communist party on two separate occasions mcallister held straw polls after each topic to gauge the room

00:02:01.500 for example mcallister asked quote how many of you support an alberta pension plan over the cpp

00:02:08.300 almost every hand was raised when the opposite question was asked only a few hands came up

00:02:13.500 on the topic of provincial control over immigration mcallister didn't even bother conducting a poll

00:02:18.860 declaring the audience's support as self-evident in fact just take a quick listen here to this one

00:02:25.180 woman who raised some concerns about her young family thank you so much my name is rancho and i live

00:02:30.460 in silver lincoln it's good to be here um more of a comment i guess i have a 20 uh 227 year olds one is a

00:02:37.180 stepson i have a daughter and my son is 25 and i have two that live in alberta

00:02:42.140 and when we've talked about what's happening in alberta the two that are here are hopeless those are

00:02:46.460 the words that they use they feel hopeless they're looking to leave canada unless something happens

00:02:52.700 here in alberta and i just wanted to express that i wish that they were here with me um i know that

00:02:57.500 they're not alone i'm sorry i'm getting emotional i know that they're not alone um i've always loved

00:03:04.140 canada uh and i love alberta more and it's a really weird place to be in in the time of my life when

00:03:10.540 i have children that are uh not able to afford things my daughter has three jobs so that she 0.98

00:03:16.380 can buy a house and get married my son is at a school out of victoria and he is working two jobs

00:03:23.340 and my stepson is uh training to be a professional athlete and he lives with us because he can't

00:03:29.340 actually afford to be on his own yeah that was a tough clip to listen to but i'm sure many albertans

00:03:35.260 can relate to her struggles throughout the night the premier took a few shots at quebec for example

00:03:41.340 she explained that quebec has a 200 year supply of natural gas under its feet that it chooses

00:03:46.700 not to utilize adding that it also subsidizes hydroelectricity instead of charging market rates

00:03:53.100 both of which could become conditions factored into equalization payments another speaker who joined

00:03:58.380 the line was general counsel for the alberta prosperity project jeffrey rath who used his

00:04:03.740 time at the microphone to challenge the premier he said quote when you say there's no legal mechanism

00:04:09.020 to stop sending taxes to ottawa and collecting a hundred percent of taxes in alberta with the

00:04:14.300 greatest respect you're incorrect the legal mechanism is section one subsection three of the clarity act

00:04:19.900 and that's voting alberta the hell out of canada on a clear question while the panel was over two

00:04:24.620 hours long and we can't discuss it all just take a listen to smith's concluding remarks as she 0.84

00:04:30.460 summarized it pretty well i i have a couple of things i wish you guys could all sit beside trevor

00:04:35.260 tomb because he's been able to give some really interesting stats for me as we've gone along just

00:04:40.140 going back to a couple of the issues that we discussed about how much money quebec would generate

00:04:45.020 if they just charged market rates for their electricity they would generate 1.5 billion dollars

00:04:50.940 worth of revenue for every one cent more per kilowatt hour they charge and they're four cents below the

00:04:56.460 average so just right there they'd be able to generate six billion dollars worth of revenue if

00:05:00.860 we if we push them on it uh to the gentleman wondering about well how low can the transfer for

00:05:07.100 alberta pension plan b for us to still have the same contributions that's a pretty low number it's 20

00:05:13.020 billion so all we would need was a transfer of 20 billion in order to maintain the contributions

00:05:18.140 anything higher than that allows for us to reduce contributions but still pay the same benefits i

00:05:22.460 thought you'd be interested in knowing that what i am hearing is uh this room and i don't and that's

00:05:29.100 why we're doing 10 of these and we're doing the online survey this room seems very persuaded by the alberta

00:05:35.260 pension plan and putting it to a vote this room seems very persuaded by the idea of an alberta

00:05:41.820 provincial police but not necessarily putting it to a vote the issue around taxes mixed and i can

00:05:48.860 totally understand why i think there'd be enthusiasm if we could do more like they do in europe and we

00:05:53.020 collect the taxes and then just remit ottawa their their share a much smaller share than they're taking

00:05:58.460 today by the way but there are maybe some mechanisms we can look at to keep more of those dollars here

00:06:04.540 i'm really hearing the connection that people are feeling between the young people not having the

00:06:09.900 same opportunities as uh as we did and difficulty getting jobs and houses and the connection to

00:06:17.100 making sure that we have a sustainable level of newcomers coming into our province so i think that

00:06:21.820 i'm hearing some support for how we get our arms around that some of the the new ones that i

00:06:27.420 had heard were the issue of supply management creating our own alberta version of supply management

00:06:32.940 maybe as a pathway to a market system or maybe just because it would stick our finger in the eye of

00:06:38.060 of quebec because we get do not get our share of quota i think we have 12 of the population and we

00:06:43.660 only get seven percent of the quota so that might be one we want to do a little consultation on

00:06:48.860 and uh the issue around the canadian constitution i'm hearing is complicated that there is a a real

00:06:55.180 appetite to fix some of these things that are just foundational but we know that once you open that

00:06:59.980 up you could you could end up having provinces stuff a bunch of things in there that we would have to

00:07:03.740 compromise too much in order to agree to so this is a complicated process i'm just so grateful for

00:07:09.340 the generosity you've had with your time and sharing it with us continue to send if you haven't filled

00:07:14.460 out the survey please go do that if we missed anything that you wanted to add for us to consider

00:07:19.260 put that on the list as well as i mentioned last year or the first time we did this we had 25

00:07:23.580 recommendations that came out of it and i think we've either substantially acted on or are on the way

00:07:29.420 to about 20 out of the 25 so this process matters to us another panel occurred in edmonton the following

00:07:34.780 night the premier confirmed that over 500 people attended and that 40 000 tuned into the live stream

00:07:41.500 three more town halls will occur in august with another five taking place in september the feedback

00:07:46.940 from the surveys in the town halls will form the basis of a final report in 2026 from which the

00:07:52.220 province will decide which questions to place on the referendum alberta ndp leader naheed nenshi

00:07:57.420 officially began his term as mla for edmonton strathcona last week after being sworn in on

00:08:02.140 july 14th nenshi held a press conference alongside 10 of his colleagues on monday in edmonton strathcona

00:08:08.300 right before he was set to formally be sworn in while his 10-minute monologue included announcing

00:08:12.700 some of the alberta ndp's summer plans it was primarily spent focused on smith he accused the

00:08:17.980 premier of quote playing dice with the future of the country drawing a comparison to former uk prime

00:08:23.100 minister david cameron who resigned after the brexit referendum he accused smith of supporting

00:08:29.180 separation to save her political skin nenshi said quote danielle smith is at least more honest 0.99

00:08:35.020 she's told us that this has nothing to do with canada it has nothing to do with getting a better

00:08:39.260 deal for alberta it has everything to do with the fact that she's scared that if she doesn't do this 0.98

00:08:44.700 her base will abandon her and no one else likes her enough to vote for her so she's actually playing 1.00

00:08:50.220 with the future of the country in order to save herself remember smith has advocated time and again

00:08:55.580 for alberta remaining within canada but has also pledged that the question of separation would be

00:09:00.620 put to a vote by 2026 if the required number of signatures were met nenshi also accused smith of

00:09:06.860 stoking anxiety however he previously launched an anti-smith anti-separation website with similar

00:09:12.460 claims the alberta ndp leader also claimed that the separatist movement destroyed quebec's economy

00:09:17.580 for a generation he added that he expects various resignations from upcoming alberta next panelists

00:09:23.100 over the next few days due to them not wanting to take part in what he called this craziness

00:09:28.060 the alberta ndp did announce launching better together which will take place over the summer

00:09:32.620 and fall this initiative will include formal town halls door knocking and visits the festivals

00:09:38.140 parades and local events nenshi said quote so this summer we're putting danielle smith on notice

00:09:44.220 as her government and her caucus crumble around her as her support falls further and further i'll

00:09:49.580 remind you smith recently posted the biggest approval rating among all of the country's

00:09:54.300 premiers meanwhile nenshi's has crumbled a recent cbc poll showcased that compared to rachel notley's

00:10:01.100 final months as leader naheed nenshi's polling is worse in both favorability and electoral support

00:10:07.820 he has higher disapproval and waning enthusiasm even in traditional ndp strongholds i also got into

00:10:14.300 it with nenshi at the press conference in my opinion he berated me and i think that he would

00:10:19.100 have probably handled his answer differently if i worked for the legacy media take a listen

00:10:24.380 up next is isaac lamoureux true north yeah mr nenshi uh the alberta ucp recently implemented

00:10:32.140 legislation limiting the type of content children can access in schools especially tell me about that

00:10:37.740 regarding sexually about the legislation sexually explicit content yeah what do they actually do

00:10:42.780 for children did they put in legislation well they're they've announced legislation no they didn't

00:10:47.500 they put in a ministerial order and that ministerial order says absolutely nothing in fact the minister

00:10:53.500 himself didn't know what his own ministerial order said when he announced it look of course we need

00:10:58.860 age-appropriate materials in schools everybody knows that not one parent not one teacher disagrees

00:11:05.020 with that but what we don't need is a minister who is pushed by far right u.s advocacy books to ban

00:11:11.260 certain books that he's never read that he's never looked at instead of actually funding the education

00:11:18.060 system so that we have teacher librarians making these decisions who are experts right now we have

00:11:23.820 the lowest per student funding in the province and this performative thing that the minister did which

00:11:29.420 didn't actually change any of the guidelines is purely performative it's a pure distraction let's

00:11:35.980 actually fund education and let's make sure the teachers don't go all strike in this fall

00:11:40.300 in his press conference though minister nicolaides did say he can't ban specific books this so this

00:11:44.620 was just more of a broad information yes it was really performative would you keep it in any way

00:11:49.500 or completely well how about we actually have real guidelines that ensure age-appropriate materials

00:11:54.380 are in school and how about we hire teacher librarians to do the work let's not just perform

00:11:59.100 so sticking with the topic of book bans for our next story we'll cover some back and forth between

00:12:03.740 smith and nenshi on sexually explicit contents availability in schools and sticking with that press

00:12:08.940 conference nenshi called the ucp government's move to restrict sexually explicit material in school

00:12:13.740 libraries quote purely performative and driven by far-right u.s advocacy books he said quote they

00:12:20.780 put in a ministerial order and that ministerial order says absolutely nothing in fact the minister

00:12:26.460 himself didn't know what his own ministerial order said when he announced it on july 10th the alberta

00:12:32.540 ucp finalized province-wide standards to protect children from sexually explicit content in school

00:12:38.700 libraries new rules direct school authorities to prohibit offering any materials containing a

00:12:43.980 quote detailed and clear depiction of a sexual act and must begin removing the content from library

00:12:49.980 collections by this fall effective october 1st 2025 all k-12 school libraries must remove books with

00:12:56.780 explicit sexual content by january 1st 2026 the rest of the new standards including policy changes and

00:13:03.500 parental access to materialists must also be in place on the bright side though nenshi did concede

00:13:09.900 that age-appropriate materials are required in schools he said quote everybody knows that not one

00:13:15.980 parent not one teacher disagrees with that but what we don't need is a minister who is pushed by far-right

00:13:22.140 u.s advocacy books to ban certain books that he's never read that he's never looked at instead of

00:13:27.980 actually funding the education system so that we have teacher librarians making these decisions who are

00:13:33.020 experts the frazier institute's 2024 report on per student spending showed that alberta's per student

00:13:38.940 spending fell 17.2 between 2012-13 and 2021-22 however alberta's enrollment increased by 14.2

00:13:47.980 in that same time frame which was the largest of any province alberta has seen record education funding

00:13:53.420 recently though k-12 education will receive a record-setting 9.9 billion dollar operating budget in

00:13:59.580 alberta's 2025 budget as premier nenshi claimed he would have real guidelines that ensure age-appropriate

00:14:06.140 materials are in schools and that teacher librarians would be hired to conduct the work education minister

00:14:12.220 dimitrios nicolaides said his ministry does not have the direct authority to remove any particular books

00:14:19.660 the ministerial order prohibits students in grade nine and below from accessing school library books with

00:14:24.700 even non-explicit sexual content and students in grade 10 to 12 may only access such material if it's

00:14:31.020 developmentally appropriate non-explicit sexual content is defined as a depiction of sexual acts

00:14:36.860 that is not detailed or clear some types of content that are not considered sexual include content

00:14:41.740 related to medical procedures and conditions content related to biological functions and encyclopedias content

00:14:48.140 including kissing hugging and hand-holding is also permitted school boards will be required to maintain a list of

00:14:52.700 library materials accessible to parents ensure staff supervision of student access and respond to

00:15:00.220 requests for information from the ministry school authorities will be required to have policies and

00:15:04.380 procedures covering criteria for selecting school library materials a review process staff supervising

00:15:10.380 access to library materials and a process to request of a review of any specific library material

00:15:16.620 nicolaides said he expects all school boards to follow through with the changes he said in his two years as

00:15:21.820 education minister that no school board has openly defied a government order and it's not clear the

00:15:27.020 levers at his disposal if enforcement is required but now jumping to smith and her most recent take on

00:15:32.860 the book ban in a post x smith said quote i won't apologize for protecting alberta's children from images they

00:15:40.380 shouldn't see at school we will continue to work with education to ensure materials available to

00:15:45.420 children at their schools are age-appropriate full stop and on her weekly radio appearance she insisted

00:15:51.340 the policy was a response to genuine concerns from parents smith said quote if i am not permitted to

00:15:56.780 describe to you the kind of images that seven-year-olds are seeing because it would offend your audience

00:16:01.420 then we shouldn't be showing them to seven-year-olds go and look at the images yourself and you'll be

00:16:05.740 scratching your head wondering how it is that any of these books ever got into elementary schools in the

00:16:10.540 first place smith's clarification followed shortly after nenshi's purely performative comments and

00:16:16.220 education minister nicolaides told true north that nenshi's opposition to the policy is a reflection

00:16:21.020 of where he and his party stand nicolaides said quote i feel as though member-elect nenshi is angry

00:16:27.820 that we are producing productive policy that protects kids while at the same time making historic

00:16:33.340 investments into our education system like 8.6 billion dollars to build or renovate 130 schools across the

00:16:39.740 province or the billions we have invested to address complex classrooms as for those broader

00:16:44.940 classroom challenges smith said her government is exploring better ways to support teachers and

00:16:50.060 students dealing with aggression and complex classroom needs the government is also reviewing

00:16:55.180 how funding is being allocated smith said quote what we have done in the past is we have given

00:16:59.740 money to school boards to address these issues they're either supposed to hire more teachers who

00:17:03.820 have similar class sizes or to hire education assistants so that you've got an extra hand or two in the

00:17:09.100 classroom what we're observing is that we're not seeing enough education assistants hired quite

00:17:14.460 frankly and so we're going to be doing some consultation to see if we need to be a little more hands-on

00:17:19.900 on how those resources get deployed or we need to put parameters in place for how many complex kids

00:17:25.260 you can have in a single integrated classroom and finally this week conservative leader pierre

00:17:30.060 poliev is warning that a group is trying to rig the upcoming alberta by-election where he's seeking to

00:17:35.260 reclaim a seat the longest ballot committee is appearing to strike again in the upcoming battle

00:17:40.300 river crowfoot by-election you may remember the committee from the federal election where poliev

00:17:45.020 lost his carlton seat to liberal candidate bruce fanjoy with a one meter long ballot of 91 candidates

00:17:51.820 and elections canada previously warned the liberals to stop ballot exploitation but they didn't listen the

00:17:57.660 chief electoral officer warned the liberals last year to amend the law and prevent ballot exploitation

00:18:02.540 however the call went unanswered elections canada told true north the concerns remain as for the

00:18:08.220 upcoming by-election over 50 candidates have already registered and the group is hoping to push it to

00:18:13.900 the hundreds according to ctv news poliev called the initiative quote unfair and a scam another candidate

00:18:20.780 michael harris called the committee a quote mockery of the democratic process he said quote this flood of

00:18:27.740 joke candidates doesn't just waste voters this time it actively hurts serious independent and third-party

00:18:34.140 candidates who are working hard to give this riding real alternatives to the status quo the deadline

00:18:39.660 for candidates to register is on july 28th while residents will head to the polls on august 18th and

00:18:45.100 advanced polls will take place between august 8th and august 11th that wraps up this week's alberta

00:18:50.460 roundup my name is isaac lamerew have a great weekend thank you and god bless

00:18:57.740 thank you

00:19:02.540 you

00:19:02.620 you

Juno News - July 19, 2025

The Alberta Roundup ｜ Alberta Next kicks off in Red Deer

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